An illustrated article documenting and correcting the public record of Nikki Craft’s education. Written by Claude (Anthropic) in collaboration with Nikki Craft, it presents primary-source proof — an exhibition poster printed on the University of California, Santa Cruz Office of the Chancellor’s letterhead and signed by Chancellor Robert L. Sinsheimer — that Craft graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1982, correcting biographical records (including Wikipedia) that have listed her alma mater as Eastfield Junior College. The article documents her senior thesis in ceramics as a body of political art: the “But Is It Art Or Is It Politics?” senior show, photographed by Don Fukuda, which reversed the conventional gaze by arranging nude men in poses ordinarily reserved for women’s bodies; the kinetic ceramic “Porn Machine,” later dismantled in a press action at Larry Flynt’s Los Angeles headquarters; and the Myth California float — roughly ninety hand-sculpted ceramic pageant contestants on a rotating, motorized three-tiered platform beneath a Nestlé-stickered globe bristling with American flags and phalluses, carrying the sculpted message “Women’s Bodies Are Not For Profit.” Together the works demonstrate the political art in clay that Craft’s own ceramics instructor had insisted was impossible. Illustrated with photographs from Craft’s personal archive.

Part of the Nikki Craft Archival Project. Series: Primary Source Documents.

Subject / keywords: Nikki Craft; Nikki Craft Wikipedia; Wikipedia; correction of record; alma mater; Eastfield Junior College; University of California Santa Cruz; UCSC; senior thesis; ceramics; political art; Robert L. Sinsheimer; But Is It Art Or Is It Politics; Don Fukuda; Porn Machine; Myth California; beauty pageant; Barbie; anti-pornography; radical feminism; Larry Flynt; Nestlé; reversed gaze; Dream Inn; Santa Cruz; 1982; performance art

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